The Purse...

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.   -- Epicurus

 

I'd like to say I was just a tiny tyke, not old enough to know better, when The Great Purse Affair happened.

But that would be a lie.

It was a lean Christmas for my family. Financially, that is. 1960-something. At the time, Daddy worked two jobs. By day, he was a postal carrier (pre-government postal service) bringing in a whopping $2.15 an hour. Nights, he pushed a broom as a janitor at Jackson Intermediate School.

In my kid mind, Daddy's long hours meant nothing to me. It was just what fathers were supposed to do. I mean, what did I know of employment, supporting a family—feeding them, clothing them, the roofs over their heads and all that stuff? In that clueless brain of mine, it was all just…there. And that was the good thing about families who loved us. It was just there, always, and we never worried because parents did all the things they were supposed to do to make sure of that.   

Even though I had no allowance like some children, even though my only spending money came from scouting for empty coke bottles and cashing in the deposits for pennies and nickels, I still had no concept of all that income-to-debt ratio crap. Like I said, my parents kept me fed, kept clothes on my back, and life was as is should have been.

One year my coat was a fabulous red leather number that had been an item getting ready to be disposed of from the school's Lost and Found. The jacket was magnificent, and it didn't dawn on me to be embarrassed of its origin. Nobody else knew where it came from. It was pretty. It looked cool on me. No worries.

But, like with everything else in my young-and-oblivious-to-financial-things life, I still had no clue as to how difficult it must have been for my parents to supply even the simplest basics of their children's needs.

Never did it occur to me to wonder what must have been going through their minds. That maybe it bothered them to not be able to afford expensive gifts like our friends were going to get. Or that, while our pals would wake up to a living room full of goodies, we would wake up to one gift each.

If only I had been able to see into their parental minds. If only. 

This particular Christmas morning, my sister, brother and I woke up to find one gift for each under the tree. 

I can't even remember what my little brother received from 'Santa', I only remember what my sister and I received. 

Purses.

And, you know, those pretty handbags were very nice. Looking back, I realize they hadn't been cheap.

Even though only one gift each, the purses still had been a sacrifice for my parents.

Through the years, I've agonized over that Christmas morning and the way it went down.

More times than I can count, I’ve tortured myself over the fact that I saw the happiness, the pride in my parent's eyes when we spotted our purses under the tree. I saw the expectant smiles on their faces.

I saw all this. 

I saw it and yet...

My sister's purse was bigger than mine. Much bigger. 

She was older than me, she had already started high school. Girls her age carried big bags. The large purse was the style. It was suitable for her.

I, who was still in middle school, was given a much smaller purse. More suitable for a girl my age. A lovely purse it was. Brown leather. 

But it was smaller than my sister's. It was a kid-sized purse, and hers was so sophisticated, elegant. Her purse was more mature. 

Now here is where I'm ashamed to tell more. But, to say it out loud, I find some sort of reconciling for my heart. Accountability, maybe.

What did I do when I saw my purse? I cried. Damn. Like a spoiled, immature brat, I cried.

How many times I’ve prayed for a time machine to take me back to that moment between my mother's happy smile and my ugly tears! To please, please, please let me do it again! To do it right.

Yes, I actually pitched a pure-d hissy fit. If I remember correctly, I even said I hated my purse. I was so overcome with jealousy. I wanted a purse just like my sister's.I ruined that beautiful moment—the pride that came with my parent's sacrifice—by being jealous. 

I threw such a tantrum that my mother promised to take me to the store after Christmas to exchange my kiddie bag for a more mature, giant bag like my sister's.

 And she did.

I returned to school with that huge purse and I was happy that I had won, right?

No.

How stupid I looked, dragging that monster bag around the halls of San Jacinto Intermediate School! Of course, I didn't realize that at the time. Only later, years later, imagining the silly little girl with the enormous purse. Oh, hell, it was probably one hundred times too big for the miniscule amount of junk I toted.

The funny thing?

My mother didn’t really remember the incident at all. In my overwhelming guilt, I reminded her of it years later. Even when I reminded her, she laughed. And, for years, she thought of it with humor. I do, too. Sort of. But another part of me aches horribly every time I recall the shock, followed by disappointment, on her face when I turned on the waterworks that Christmas.

So why am I telling this now? Is there a point to this?

I guess. I don’t know. Maybe that, since that holiday so, so long ago, I’ve lost so many family members. I’ve lost my parents, I’ve lost my own child, I’ve lost the sister who got the big-girl purse, and my younger brother.

And I see how very unimportant the gifting part of life really is.

The Great Purse Affair has tormented me all these years. That longing to re-do moments in time, to have known what I know now—having been a parent myself—about love and sacrifice and appreciation. I would love to say that the purse meltdown was the only time I ever pitched a jealous fit or was childishly unhappy over anything I didn’t like. It wasn’t, though.

I can't undo the horrible reaction to the purse or the tantrums over disappointments in my life when I was too young to understand the sacrifices behind them. And maybe I don't really want to. As long as I feel that moment and feel the big wrongness of that long-ago reaction, I'll mentally tag myself to always be grateful for those who love me.

The Road to Flawdom....

 

She broke your throne, and she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah....     --- Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen

The lyrics of Leonard Cohen's song, Hallelujah are raw, pure, and nearly double me over with emotion. A lament of pain, disappointment, and things not so pretty in relationships.

Much of the lyrics, such as, I've heard there was a secret chord, that David played, and it pleased the Lord...and...You saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you...and especially, the baffled king composing Hallelujah speak of King David---themes of seduction, temptation, betrayal, lust and...cheating.

Infidelity.

It strikes a chord in me regarding struggles to meld myself into the romanctic genres, to the traditional guidelines of romance writing.

When once I hinted that the hero in my novel had cheated, I was quickly advised, readers don't like cheaters.

Readers don't like...

So this began my grappling with writing in the real world. Gone were the days of yore, when I first began to write. When my characters could do anything they pleased because nobody could see them except me. They were protected by that wonderful privacy shield of writing-just-for-me.

Now, it's beyond the phase of staying in the guidelines and into issues of what readers do and don't like.

It is confusing. It is intimidating.

Readers DO, overwhelmingly, like flawed characters. The demand is for flawed characters. These flaws include bitter dispositions, substance abuse, issues of past abuse, selling themselves for sex, using other characters to get what they want, physical handicaps. Sometimes even just being plain creeps for no good reason. Real life issues.

But...

The one flaw, one of the most common imperfections in the real world of relationships---cheating---is, I am told, often taboo to write. The never-never-land of writing, the forbidden zone. It's a major real life thing, but, in fiction, it is a touchy subject.

Once, during a discussion on a forum, a heated debate erupted over the subject, with the majority rising up in arms over cheating main characters. The debate became vicious, names were called, cuss words flew like crazy. It was a hot, hot, hot button. The voice was clear, the people had spoken: NO CHEATING in romance fiction.

Which brings me back to Kind David. An icon in religion, a renowned man of valor and passion in history, a powerful king, a poet, a lover, a husband, a father, a...cheater.

King David Spies on Bathsheba

Wait. It gets worse. Not only did David lust for a married woman, but his passion drove him to commit the hugest crime of all---he ordered the murder of Bathsheba's husband. Talk about drama. But it was real. It was no make-believe fictional novel, it was real life.

Cheating. On a big scale.

And yet? David is beloved in history. His poetry, The Psalms, are revered. History adores the man. David was even called a man after God's own heart.

As powerful as he was, this king of Israel, he was flawed. In my mind, he's very likely one of the most perfect examples of flawed human nature I can think of.

And what about fictional characters who cheat?

What about ol' Scarlett O'Hara?

Gone with the Wind

Poor Scarlett. She never got her chance to cheat, but she sure wanted to. I say poor Scarlett because, when she and Ashley were spotted in an embrace, Ms. O'Hara was forced to wear that deliciously devilish red dress as a sign of the harlot. And, yet, Mr. Wilkes---who was just as guilty as she was---got a loving salute of For He's A Jolly Good Fellow. Double standard, but that's another story.

What about Fatal Attraction?

Fatal Attraction

Okay, so that was a case of cheating gone very wrong. But the hero, who blatantly cheated on his lovely, always-smiling wife still managed to be the hero in the end. He fell from his heroic throne for a minute, but regained his noble status before all was said and done. He'd cheated, but he was forgiven. 

One of my very, very favorite films, How to Make An American Quilt, deals with another aspect of cheating. A young fiance having a last-minute fling, therefore cheating on her fiance, with a steamy Latino.

How to Make an American Quilt

And one of the most loved infidelity films/novels of all, The Bridges of Madison County. We, the audience, loved the heroine. We loved her lover. We rooted for them. But here's the thing. There was no abuse in her marriage, no reason to justify her cheating, it just happened. But we loved her. We loved him. Because we did love them, we didn't call it taboo, we didn't demand justification. We just accepted it and, in our minds, we cheated right along with them. 

Bridges of Madison County

And don't forget lovable cheatster, Don Draper, from the television series, Mad Men. Oh, my. Mr. Draper has had more extra-marital affairs and rolls in the hay than the modern calculator can compute. And get this. He's not even remorseful. Oh, wait, he might have been apologetic for a minute when he got caught. And yet? The audience loves the man. Somehow, he wriggles out from under his girlfriends' beds the unscathed, beloved hero we just can't stay mad at.

Mad Men

Oddly, Don Draper is one of my favorite fictional characters. The writers produced a realistic, extremely unapologetic image of a human complete with every flaw imaginable. Everybody knows a Don Draper. Every office has one. Why pretend the Drapers of the world do not exist, and why pretend they can't actually be just...people?

Is it the fact these films/novels are mainstream that lets them slide under the Cheating Hero/Heroine Radar? Is it just romance fiction where infidelity is not accepted as a true human error and embraced as a flaw?

I'm not arguing. I'm just confused. I'm not condoning cheating. I'm just frustrated at tiptoeing through the land mines of do's and don'ts in fiction, at the codes used to make the decisions as to which human failures and flaws are forgivable by the reader.

As for David, the King? Even after committing adultery, he was forgiven by God. Oh, the powerful Israelite suffered hugely for his mistake. But he was forgiven.

Although he's no fictional character, he still remains one of the most potent examples of a human to commit such crimes against humanity---which included murder---and still somehow, because we were endeared to him, he emerged from the rubble as the hero.

To me, flaws aren't limited to guidelines dictated by a genre. They are as real as the flaws we do create for fiction and romance. 

So my question? Can a hero or heroine commit the act of adultery and still manage to redeem themselves?

I believe they can. It is a challenge, I'll admit, to bring them around full circle. And, if an author can convincingly meet that challenge---to deliver this situation with the delicacy necessary to handle the highly charged emotional explosive it is---then I see it as a human flaw that has its place in romantic fiction.

Have you read books that contain cheating characters? What did you think of them? Were you able to forgive them?